Q&A: Climate leaders with answers

Michael Spencer is CEO of Zeno, a new entrant in the African EV market with almost $10 million in seed funding

Q: You were gone for a while, no? A: I left auto manufacturing at Tesla two years ago and went into stealth mode. Today I can share we're building a full-stack electric mobility ecosystem from the ground up, centred around a 150 cc equivalent sport utility electric motorcycle, designed to compete stroke for stroke with the most popular petrol commuter motorcycles in Africa and South Asia.

Q: Sounds like Tesla for emerging markets. Who is "we"? A: Zeno is a team of ex-Tesla, Bolt, SafeBoda, Lucid Motors, Apple, Gogoro and Ola Electric leaders who designed, engineered, built and sold some of the world’s most popular electric vehicles and household products. We're not buying kits from China. We've designed a new bike and battery especially for our market. We're an "original equipment manufacturer" or OEM, like Tesla.